1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording/reproducing apparatus used for recording information in a recording medium (e.g., an optical disk) and reproducing the information therefrom, and also to a method that enables updating of the firmware the recording/reproducing apparatus uses.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, so-called DVD recorders have come into wide use. DVD recorders record information in writable disks, such as a DVD-RAM (Digital Versatile Disk-Random Access Memory) or a DVD-R (Digital Versatile Disk-Recordable), and reproduce information from such disks.
The DVD recorders can be upgraded by updating the firmware they use. The process for updating the firmware is as follows:
To update the firmware, the user makes access to an update site, using his or her PC (personal computer), and downloads the necessary update data into the PC. The update data is transferred from the PC to a DVD recorder by use of a dedicated updating application. The firmware of the DVD recorder is updated, using the update data transferred from the PC.
The update process described above has problems in that the PC has to be installed with the dedicated updating program beforehand. Hence, updating the firmware of the DVD decoder may be complicated or time-consuming to the user.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 11-65828 discloses a technology wherein information about applications requiring updating is exchanged between a client and a server by use of a simple authentication file so that the applications the client possesses can be updated on the basis of the information sent from the server.
It should be noted that what Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 11-65828 discloses is a technique of updating an application of the client PC on the basis of the information sent form the server. The publication does not describe anything suggestive of an invention wherein a PC upgrades an AV (Audio Visual) device on the basis of information available from an update site.